February update

Wow, that was the longest time ever between posts.  We'll blame it on picture issues which have since been corrected.  Also let's blame it on winter.  I thought last week, days in the 70s, was the answer to my prayers and it was until this week.  Now we're at 19 degrees and I'm ready to move back to Florida, until the love bugs and noseeums and heinously hot weather arrive.  Then I'll move back up here.  I guess I'm aimin' to be a snowbird.

We're finishing up a much-needed break with homeschooling.  Somehow, Sean was refusing to do anything each morning, including violin, and instead of backing off, I just got upset.  I started off the year with the mindset of following Sean's lead/pace and learning through play.  Once we transferred from Montessori to mostly the neo-classical model from the Well-Trained Mind, I still felt good about how it was going.  Then, about a month ago, I realized that we had slipped into a negative mode.  After talking things over with two of my best homeschooling mom friends, I realized I had committed a very typical beginner mistake:  doing too much too soon.  Basically, most of the parents I know that homeschool do very little for kindergarten.  Lots of reading and lots of interest-led learning.  If their kids are really into dinosaurs, they get out a bunch of books on that subject, visit lots of museums, go on a dig, etc.  That all made a lot of sense to me, though I missed the structure of what we used to do.  Since then, we've been taking it easy, reading LOTS of books and just trying to have fun.  For instance, instead of working on basic memory words for writing, I had an epiphany (guess I'm a bit slow...)  We were in the middle of reading Charlotte's Web (me to the kids) and Sean was very into pretend play.  Me as Fern or Charlotte, Sean as Wilbur or Templeton and Sweet Pea as a mouse or Wilbur.  That morning, I made a handwriting worksheet with words on it like rat, Templeton, spider, Wilbur, Charlotte, etc.  Sean even wrote radiant on his own, since radiant is one of the words Charlotte writes in her web to help save Wilbur's life.

Actually, now that I look at this first paper, I realize it was Sean that gave me the idea.  He excitedly left the table and found the book and then copied down "Charlotte's Web" on his own.  That was after he had written "radient."  The next morning was when I started with the pig, rat, Templeton bit.  So, a few mornings each week, Sean is now writing words that pertain to his current interests.  This week the words are geared toward the characters from Thornton W. Burgess' The Adventures of Reddy Fox.  Sean LOVES all of his stories, and Sweet Pea listens pretty well too.

He's very into numbers still but I have to make sure it's not attached to a lesson of any sort lately so he helps me count things while cooking (like everyone else does) and we count by 2s, 5s and 10s when in the car.  That's all fun to him.  We're doing lots of jigsaw puzzles.  Sweet Pea is actually very good at them for her age too.  I think we'll have to look into getting some more geared to the younger age set for her birthday.  This morning we did a few science experiments from a book my mom sent.  We used straws to move a very heavy book across the floor and we make shapes with paper to see which shape/structure could hold the most weight.

5 1/2 years old is proving to difficult and wonderful, depending on the day.  Sean's really shown a lot of growth in many areas, including when he and cousin Leify are together.  I noticed that he actually stops what he's doing (often) when I call for him in the middle of silly, wild play.  He's showing some restraint finally and the two of them are having fun together.  This is nice to see after 3 months of hostility between the two of them.  He goes back and forth between being gentle and mean to Sweet Pea.  We still have lots of work to do with handling setbacks and frustrations.

All in all, after a good long easy-going repair time, to fix my pushing and lack of patience from earlier, I still feel great about homeschooling.  The other big detail I failed to mention up a few paragraphs ago is that I was following the schedule loosely for 1st grade from the Well-Trained Mind.  It's so hard for me to find the balance between what I know he is intellectually capable of doing and what he mentally is ready to focus on.  Just because he can spell harder words doesn't mean he actually wants to.  I must have some 2x4 tendencies* b/c it took me a long time to actually absorb that even though I know it all in my head.
*2x4 people need to be hit on the head with a 2x4 to get something through their feeble little brain.

This series of photos is of Sweet Pea, right after a bath, being very silly.  She is becoming such a silly little one.  She looked at me sweetly yesterday morning as she said, "Mommy, did Daddy take the Prius or the truck today?"  As if it mattered but these are the things on her mind.  :)  She is still a head-strong little girl sometimes but it's usually easy to handle after long periods of sweetness and kindness.  I remember having lots of trouble with Sean at this age, even before Pea was born.  Of course, he was my guinea pig for figuring out which parenting style worked best for all of us.  I remember trying to keep him in the stupid time-out chair and getting sooooo frustrated.  Now, of course, I loathe time-outs and refuse to even say the words in our house.
Quite by accident, Cathleen is sleeping in the lower bunk.  It's been about 8 days.  The first night she walked into our room at 5:50am and each morning, it was earlier still until a day or two ago when it's been about 2am.  She's happy and we're happy with any progress that doesn't involve fear and tears.

 When the weather was nice last week, we went on a hike/mushroom hunt last week.

 Sean practiced jumping across the small creek to the log over and over.  No less than 20 times.  He was determined.

 Once again, it was so beautiful outside that it seemed a crime to do anything inside, even violin.

Sweet Pea is my chocolate girl.  She ate 3 of my 6 truffles.  But she only eats the good stuff.  I think I might actually buy some candy for Easter this year.  There's a first for everything!

 We are still loving our kitchen upgrades.  One night we left a big glob of yellow mustard in the sink (it was hiding under something) and, typically that's the kind of thing most Corian-haters say is impossible to remove, but with a  tiny bit of SoftScrub and a ScotchBrite pad, it was gone instantly.  SoftScrub is my new best friend.  It keeps our counters and sink spotless.  Those roses were from Adam for Valentine's Day, of course but I was shocked that he finally realized that I really do love receiving flowers, even though I told him when we were dating that they were a waste of money.  :)  I can now relax and enjoy the little things in life, unlike my super-practical former self.  The kalanchoe on the left was a gift from friends who came over for dinner 6 months ago.  It bloomed again and, since I plan on always having flowers in my kitchen since they look so pretty, they were next in line after the paperwhites were expired.

Sean showing off his shelf 'shroom and Sweet Pea showing off a clump of dirty moss.

Did I mention it was 76 degrees last week?!  The kids insisted upon swimming in the pool but once they got wet, they were shivering and playing.